


Warning: Do Not Approach While The Lights Are Flickering

by Veto_power_over_clocks



Series: Badly paraphrased songs [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, Leadership is difficult, Not Canon Compliant, Sad Allura, lots of talking, written before season 3 aired
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-16
Updated: 2017-07-16
Packaged: 2018-12-02 19:25:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11515857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Veto_power_over_clocks/pseuds/Veto_power_over_clocks
Summary: Saying that they might have to switch lions is easy. Getting the lions' approval is different.Allura just wants to talk.





	Warning: Do Not Approach While The Lights Are Flickering

**Author's Note:**

> Alternative summary: "The Allura epilogue to '[In the way knitting needles love yarn](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10522674/chapters/23227905)' because I feel people didn't like Allura much in that one and that's terrible because she's only trying to do something, but now I realize that this fic might not help her image that much either which only goes to prove that Leadership Is Hard".
> 
> You don't need to have read 'In the way knitting needles love yarn' to understand this one, all you need to know is that Shiro's gone, Keith might have to pilot Black, Lance might have to pilot Red, and they don't have anyone to pilot Blue, so maybe Allura will (if we go by the original series).

Being connected to the lions means never being alone. It’s probably the only certainty left in Allura’s life, because while everything can die and anyone can surprise her, the lions remain: five warm lights whose presence she can always feel at the back of her mind, even though they rarely speak to her.

She had tried starting conversations before, back when Altea still existed and the Paladins were collapsing under the pressure of fighting one of their own, back when she still had more hopes than plans: she had tried talking to Black, begged her to find some way to stop Zarkon, she had asked the others if they could help without a fifth pilot, pleaded them to let her fight with them, but they had never replied.

When the cryo-pod had opened and she’d fallen into Lance’s arms, she’d felt the lions’ presence and thought they were calling her to fight. She’d been ready.

She’s still ready.

With Shiro gone, someone else will have to become a pilot. With their limited options, she’d felt sure that the lions would say something, so she had waited a whole day for their decision, for them to tell her whether she or Coran (or, in a worst case scenario, Slav) would be flying with them, or maybe if they had another candidate in mind, but they’d remained silent, forcing her to make a decision on the matter; Shiro had wanted Keith to pilot Black, and she’d respect that choice, but it left them with an empty seat in the Red Lion that Lance might be able to fill, and if that worked out, Allura was hoping that Blue’s reputation as the lion most accepting of new pilots was true and she’d pick someone else quickly, because otherwise there was no chance of forming Voltron again.

The days following the suggestion of pilot switching had been stressful: something had happened between Lance and Blue, Keith didn’t seem eager to pilot Black, and the lions still weren’t giving their opinion.

At least things between Lance and Blue seem fixed. Everything else is the same.

Allura is determined to get an answer from the lions, even if she has to start living in the hangar, which seems more likely with every passing minute that she spends standing in front of them, trying to get anything from the constant sound of static at the back of her mind that means the lions are talking to each other.

“ _Allura?_ ” It’s Lance’s voice, full of concern, but when she looks around, she can’t find him.

“ _Allura?_ ” he says again, and she realizes that the voice is coming from inside her head.

“ _Allura?_ ” The voice is Lance’s, but there’s a layer beneath it that feels like a current of numbers and cold water that makes it obvious that it’s not a memory or one of her own thoughts, but something put inside her mind by somebody else.

“Blue,” Allura says, turning to look towards that lion.

Two things happen almost at the same moment: the first is that the static at the back of Allura’s mind stops for a moment, replaced by a wave of surprise tinted by indignation; the second is that the spot in Allura’s mind that she has always known to be Blue – bigger than the others, always full of noise whenever she tried to establish a connection – expands, causing a stabbing pain at the right side of Allura’s skull, focused over her eye, that’s gone just as quickly as it began, and then Blue’s presence is no longer a spot, it’s a small sun, rays reaching towards Allura’s thoughts and memories, allowing her to feel Blue’s emotions as clearly as her own.

The static is back.

“ _I’m sorry for that, Allura_ ” Blue says. It’s different from the previous times she has spoken to her, because each word in the sentence is said with a different voice, like Blue had gone through different recordings to make it sound like a person was speaking. Before, she’d simply projected the words into Allura’s mind in her own language, the current of numbers and cold water.

“What was that?” Allura asks, reaching towards her right eye, poking at the skin around it. There isn’t any lingering pain and her vision hasn't been affected.

“ _I needed to establish a better connection with you. We must talk._ ”

Blue lowers her head and opens her mouth, her wishes obvious, yet Allura doesn’t move. The Blue Lion is Lance’s. Entering the cockpit without him feels like an invasion of privacy, an insult, a careless action from someone who has already hurt him by telling him he might have to leave his lion.

“ _Lance already knows you are here and why you’re here,_ ” Blue says, projecting a memory into Allura’s mind: it’s Allura telling the Paladins that she’s going to consult the lions about the possible pilot changes. Considering the lions hadn’t been there, this memory must be Lance’s, and the level of closeness required between a lion and a Paladin, that they’re willing to share memories, only serves to increase Allura’s doubts about whether separating them is a good idea.

“ _It’s the only idea you have right now_ ,” Blue says, startling Allura.

“You heard that?”

“ _You were thinking it. You need to block my access to your thoughts if you don’t want me to hear them._ _Now, please come in, we still have to talk._ ”

“Won’t Lance mind?”

“ _He does, but he also knows that you and I must talk._ _And_ _he also knows that he is my Paladin, no matter what is decided today,_ ” Blue says, her affection for Lance a third layer on every word.

Allura takes a step towards Blue and sees herself trough the lion’s eyes. She looks tired and out of place in her dress – she’d considered wearing her battle suit, but then she’d deemed it inappropriate for the task, after all, she was going to talk to her allies – as well as confused. More than that, though, Allura is curious, so she keeps walking.

“ _Welcome!_ ” Blue says when Allura enters the cockpit. The voice is cheerful, probably male, and the word sounds sung rather than spoken. “ _It’s from a musical_ ,” she explains.

“Oh… Is this how you speak to Lance? With audio files?”

“ _If I can find the words I need, yes._ ”

“Do the other lions do the same?”

“ _They can’t._ ”

“Why not?”

“ _They don’t have the files._ ”

Allura blinks a couple of times, opens her mouth to ask more about it, but Blue says, “ _You don’t have to talk. You can simply think what you want to tell me._ ”

“Is that… _Isn’t that strange?_ ”

A wave of amusement goes through Allura’s mind. It’s not hers.

“ _You have been mentally talking to us for years, Allura._ ”

“ _Yes, but I’ve been talking to all of you. This is the first time I talk to only one of you._ ”

Blue… chuckles. She chuckles. It’s not a sound Allura had ever associated with the lions.

“Wait,” Allura says. “You mean- _You mean all those times I tried to talk to you mentally you heard me?_ ”

“ _We are connected. Of course we heard you._ ”

“ _Why didn’t you answer?_ ”

“ _We felt it might be disrespectful to our pilots. Besides, you talked to us to ask the same things Alfor did, or to ask us if you could be a pilot. We couldn’t answer any of those questions in a way that would satisfy you._ ”

Allura’s hands curl into fists, her lips press into a tight line. They’d been ignoring her. Despite her best intentions, they’d been dismissing her like they would a child.

She forces herself to relax and walks slowly around the cockpit, taking in every detail, lightly touching the controls. She rests her hand on the pilot chair, feels the texture and makes a conscious effort not to imagine herself fighting alongside the remaining Paladins ten thousand years ago.

“ _Lance said you can sit if you want to. According to him, it’s a very comfortable chair._ ”

The corner of Allura’s mouth goes up in what could almost be called a smile.

“Is he… seeing this? Are you telling him everything that’s happening?”

“ _No. I simply told him I’d invite you in and he mentioned the chair. Right now I am only talking to you._ ”

“Why are you talking to me now?”

“ _Because the others are busy discussing your suggestion and I am more interested in listening to what you have to say._ ”

“I've told you everything already.”

“ _Yes, about your idea. But what I want to know_ ,” she stops using audio files and changes to her own language, “ _is why you think I’d be willing to take you or anybody else as my pilot. What I want to know is why you came here to ask for our opinion when you already knew that Lance had told us the idea, when you had already presented it to us shortly after he and I had our argument, when you know that there’s nothing you can do but wait for our decision._ ”

A chill goes down Allura’s spine, but she doesn’t move. She doesn’t look behind herself to check if the exit remains open, doesn’t take her eyes from the control panel as she sits down. She doesn’t feel any hostility coming from Blue, but more important than that is the fact that she trusts the lions. She trusts Blue, like her father had done, like Lance does.

“I lied,” Allura says. “I came here to see you, Blue. To talk to you.” In a quiet voice, she adds, “To ask you to help us.”

“ _Why aren’t you trying to pilot Black instead?_ ”

“Shiro wanted Keith to take that role, and despite my… reservations on the subject, I trust his judgment.”

“ _That’s not a good reason not to try to pilot Black._ ”

“It isn’t, is it?” Allura laughs. “But Keith has already piloted Black. Asking her to get used to a third person… would she accept me?”

“ _She has considered you. It’s one of the many things they are debating._ ” This time, Blue uses audio files again, each word full of exasperation.

Allura’s eyes widen slightly. There is much she wants to ask regarding that sentence, but she figures she will know when the time’s right, or she can simply ask later. The lions’ discussion could take a while.

“Where did you find so many words to use?” she asks as she sits down.

“ _Human movies and TV shows._ ”

“But how did you obtain them? I thought you were dormant on Earth.”

“ _I didn’t have the patience for that. I recovered consciousness every two, three hundred years. One day I woke up and discovered that humans had developed wireless communications, and then I never went to sleep again. They have a fascinating variety of stories._ ”

On the screen, Blue shows her several folders.

“ _That’s every movie and TV show I watched on Earth and which I decided to keep. I also have books and graphic novels._ ”

Allura starts going through the folders, feels dizzy just by looking at the contents of the first one: an apparently endless list of titles, none of which is familiar in any way.

“Does Lance know you have all this?”

“ _Yes. We have considered starting a movie night tradition._ ”

“Oh.” She keeps looking through the files. “What’s Earth like?”

There’s a pause during which Allura can almost hear Blue thinking, and then a video starts playing on the screen; there are oceans, deserts, forests, volcanoes, flowers that Allura couldn’t have imagined, strange animals, that ‘rain’ that Lance had mentioned to Coran once and which Coran had told her about (water falling from the sky, who would have thought?).

“ _I would have liked to see the rain_ ,” Blue says. “ _Imagine, not having to go to the ocean to be covered by water._ ”

The video ends. Allura goes down the list of titles, trying to guess what a movie’s about just from its name.

“ _Wrong,_ ” Blue says more often than not about Allura’s guesses.

Soon it’s turned into a game, with Allura coming up with outlandish plots, each one more absurd than the previous one, until she gets Blue to laugh, which in turns makes her laugh as well.

“Do you have anything from Altea?” she asks after she has managed to stop laughing.

“ _Not much, I’m afraid._ ”

“Oh.” She doesn’t think her tone reveals her disappointment, but there’s no point in hiding her emotions from someone that’s in her mind.

“ _But I do have some videos, if you would like to see them._ ”

“No, thank you, Blue." After all she might not be able to see them without crying.

“ _There’s nothing wrong with that._ ”

“I’m trying to convince you I’m strong enough to be your Paladin. I don’t think crying would be the best argument.” She tries to smile reassuringly, but all she manages is a sad smirk.

“ _Do you truly think so?_ ”

Allura opens her mouth, closes it, and brings her knees to her chest, tries to make herself as small as possible.

“ _No, I don’t think so. But… there are many things I should have cried about already. If I start crying about Altea, I will start crying about those things as well, and then I’m not sure when I’d be able to stop._ ”

“ _Very well, Allura. If you change your mind, just ask for the files._ ”

“ _Thank you, Blue… Do you remember Altea?_ ”

“ _Yes. I remember it perfectly._ ”

“ _So do I. But there probably aren’t many people out there who do. I only remember because… because for me it hasn’t been ten thousand years._ ” She hugs her knees, tries to even her breathing and doesn’t blink, because she can feel the tears coming.

“ _It has been ten thousand years for me and I still feel like I did on the first day. It’s what happens when you have a brain that can’t forget._ ” The latter part of the sentence is said in Lance's voice - it's sad and sympathetic and it makes her wonder about Blue's and Lance's conversations.

If Blue had had a more humanoid shape, Allura would have rested her hand on her shoulder, but she has to settle for putting a hand on the chair’s armrest and hope Blue can feel her good intentions through that point of contact.

There’s warmth in Allura’s mind, like Blue’s reaching towards her as well, trying to comfort her in her own way. She allows herself to be covered by that warmth, lets her thoughts drift away as she focuses only on Blue’s presence, on her fondness for Allura, on the message she’s repeating, “ _We’re not alone._ ”

It’s the first truly comforting thing Allura has found since her father’s memories had to be destroyed, but unlike those, the lions are a constant. She can be vulnerable around Blue.

“Blue, I came here to ask for your permission to pilot you, but I will accept what you and the others decide. All I want is to do something,” Allura says. Blue doesn’t say anything, but there’s a shift in her presence that makes Allura thinks she’s encouraging her to keep talking. “I wish I had been able to do something before, ten thousand years ago. I wish I could have fought. I want to do something now. I will lead and control the castle, but if you tell me I can do more, I will. I still have to learn more about my powers… if I can do what Haggar does, we might have some new advantages!” She’d been speaking with increasing strength and her determination surprises even her. There’s a difference between showing yourself as strong and unyielding, and actually feeling that way. For a brief moment, she believes she’s invincible. “Maybe there’s some way we don’t have to depend on Voltron so much, especially now that Zarkon has created a weapon that allows him to fight it directly. Maybe becoming a Paladin is the wrong tactic, but I also know that we don’t have anyone else here, and that if we don’t act soon we will lose the advantage we obtained in the last fight. That’s why I want you to choose a new Paladin. It can be anyone, all that matters is that you choose them, because I trust your judgment, Blue. I trust you.”

There is silence after she’s done speaking. Even the static at the back of her mind is gone.

“Blue?”

“ _I kicked them out for a moment. You were talking to me, Allura._ ” The way Blue says her name reminds Allura of how she talks about Lance. She has the feeling that she has missed something during the conversation, that Blue has been telling her something all this time and she hasn't noticed.

Allura uncurls, brings her feet to the ground, stands up.

" _Thank you for listening to me, Blue,"_ she says and exits the cockpit.

She has a suspicion of what it is that Blue has been saying, but it might also be hope, so for now she will wait.

There's no more static, but the lions' presence remains at the back of her mind.

She will know their decision soon.

**Author's Note:**

> Anybody else want to talk about how Allura woke up to find out her whole world's dead and she's now in charge of leading a war, leaving her with no time to grieve properly nor the possibility to be vulnerable, and how sometimes she has to make choices she doesn't like but which seem to be the best ones at the moment? She needs a break. And a hug. And lots of happiness.
> 
> If you liked this fic and feel like promoting it, would you consider reblogging [this post](http://veto-power-over-fanworks.tumblr.com/post/163058766250/warning-do-not-approach-while-the-lights-are)? Thanks!
> 
> You can go say hi at [my personal tumblr](http://veto-power-over-clocks.tumblr.com).


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